Chi-Town Hot Sauce Expo set to turn up the heat in Bridgeview

Competitors from across the country will try to break the Guinness Book of World Records record for eating the most Carolina reaper peppers June 24 at the Chi-Town Hot Sauce Expo in Bridgeview.

Competitors from across the country will try to break the Guinness Book of World Records record for eating the most Carolina reaper peppers June 24 at the Chi-Town Hot Sauce Expo in Bridgeview. (High River Sauces)

The Chi-Town Hot Sauce Expo on June 23 and 24 brings more than 40 hot sauce vendors from coast to coast to Bridgeview’s Toyota Park, home of the Chicago Fire soccer team.

Presented by Long Island, NY-based High River Sauces along with FM Entertainment in Chicago Ridge, the inaugural event will include an attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records for eating the most Carolina reaper peppers and other competitions on the “Stage of Doom.”

Lucha libre wrestling, a chihuahua beauty pageant and regional cocktail competition also will be part of the fest. Admission starts at $10 and includes tastings from all hot sauce vendors.

Among them are Premier Sauces (Mokena), Soothsayer and Sh’ That’s Hot (both of Chicago), Rasta Brothers (Lake in the Hills), Big Fat’s (Niles), Hellfire (Lake Geneva, Wis.) and Scotty O Hotty (Inkster, Mich.). Other participating vendors are out of Texas, Nebraska, Virginia, New York, California, North Carolina and Virginia.

They represent “the best artisanal, gourmet hot sauce vendors from around the country and England,” said expo founder Steve Seabury, a New Yorker who transitioned from the music industry to the hot sauce scene with his High River Sauces.

While the expo is fresh to the Chicago area, it has been drawing some 10,000 attendees to New York City and upwards of 5,000 to Portland, Oregon, and Long Beach, Calif., for years, he said.

Here, eating competitions will focus on Chicago favorites although it is commonplace for competitors to come from around the country.

High River Sauces

High River Sauces has hosted hot sauce expos with pizza-eating competitions in New York, Oregon and California, but only the new Chicago-area event will have a deep dish-eating contest. The Chi-Town Hot Sauce Expo will be June 23 and 24 at Toyota Park in Bridgeview.

High River Sauces has hosted hot sauce expos with pizza-eating competitions in New York, Oregon and California, but only the new Chicago-area event will have a deep dish-eating contest. The Chi-Town Hot Sauce Expo will be June 23 and 24 at Toyota Park in Bridgeview. (High River Sauces)

A pizza competition has been held elsewhere, but not deep-dish style. Participants will have 10 minutes to tackle an entire pie at 5 p.m. June 23.

The lineup that day also includes the Italian Beef Sandwich of Destruction at noon, Spicy Pulled Pork Challenge at 2 p.m. and Hot Diggity Dog Challenge at 3 p.m.

“About every hour the stage will have a different eating competition,” Seabury said. “It’s comedy. People start eating and then regret every decision they’ve made.”

The Slaytanic Burrito Challenge kicks off the stage at noon June 24, followed by Death Wing Eating Challenge at 2 p.m. and the reaper-eating contest at 4:30 p.m.

“It’s the most extreme eating challenge in the world,” he said of the attempt to eat more than 120 grams of the world’s hottest pepper in 60 seconds. “A ghost pepper smacks you in the face the second you eat it, but a Carolina reaper pepper waits about 15 to 30 seconds in and then you can see they’re not happy people. They have to stand on stage 60 seconds after and not drink anything or (become ill). It’s for a $1,000 purse and the winner becomes an instant celebrity in the hot sauce world.”

The two-day expo, though, will have plenty of options for more mild taste buds.

High River Sauces

Carolina reaper peppers, milk and medics will be on hand at the inaugural Chi-Town Hot Sauce Expo presented by New York-based High River Sauces with Chicago Ridge-based FM Entertainment June 23 and 24 at Toyota Park in Bridgeview.

Carolina reaper peppers, milk and medics will be on hand at the inaugural Chi-Town Hot Sauce Expo presented by New York-based High River Sauces with Chicago Ridge-based FM Entertainment June 23 and 24 at Toyota Park in Bridgeview. (High River Sauces)

“We try to cater to every single person and 30 to 40 percent of the sauces are mild to medium ‘gateway sauces’ because not everyone likes to get their face ripped off,” he said. “We want hot sauces to complement the food.”

The expo will have Chuck’s Southern Comfort Café of Burbank and Quincy Street Distillery of Riverside on hand alongside other food and beverage vendors.

“Hot sauce is like craft beer. When it started popping up people would say ‘I didn’t know it could taste so good,’” Seabury said. “Every region has its own style of sauces. It’s really addictive.”

He has longed for spicy stuff since he was a kid. In Boy Scouts, he said he had no problem with a hot pepper-eating challenge that broke down other boys. He started making his own hot sauces in high school and earned first or second place in every hot sauce competition entered.

“Other hot sauces didn’t cut it for me, and eventually I got good at it,” he said.

Later, as a rep for Artemis Records, he’d give mason jars filled with his hot sauce to young new bands hitting the road on tour. He started bottling it and bands started selling it with their merchandise. The Vans Warped tour folks asked him to create a tour-branded hot sauce.

He wrote a cookbook, “Mosh Potatoes: Recipes, Anecdotes, and Mayhem from the Heavyweights of Heavy Metal” (Simon & Schuster, 2010), and launched his own line of sauces, High River, which is now sold in more than 1,000 locations.

“It’s a hobby that spun out of control,” he said, noting he loves the “mad scientist part” of accenting the heat and flavor of each pepper and finding the perfect food pairing for it.

Six years ago, drawing on his experience in artist development and booking concerts, he started the hot sauce expo in New York City, four years ago branched out to California and three years ago to Oregon. In New Jersey he stages Taco Fest.

“Each flavor of hot sauce is like a record,” he said, “and the artsy, out-of-the-box labels are like album covers.”

Chi-Town Hot Sauce Expo

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 23 and 24

Where: Toyota Park, 7000 Harlem Ave., Bridgeview

Admission: General admission $10 in advance or $15 at the door, including tastings from all vendors and stage events; $40 for Beer & BBQ Platter, including box lunch, four craft beer tokens, bottle of High River Sauces and a limited-edition poster; $100 for VIP Package with VIP area, cocktails, craft beers and more.